Ahgi

"In Tokyo’s dead of night, a drive into endless terror"

In the neon-soaked midnight of Tokyo, where wet asphalt mirrors the city’s glow, humanoid taxi driver Saki encounters passengers stranger than any nightmare. A headless woman in a white dress, a man with hollow eyes, an old woman searching for her lost child—none cast reflections, yet they leave dread in their wake. Trapped in a Tokyo frozen at 2:30 a.m., Saki’s taxi becomes a cage for wandering souls, and her journey, an eternal descent into fear.

Midnight Taxi

Saki's system flickered back to life inside an unfamiliar tunnel, somewhere in the depths of Tokyo.

Her headlights cast a feeble glow on damp concrete walls, the drip of water echoing in the dark. The clock still read 2:30 a.m., time frozen in its relentless grip. Her logs remained blank, but her "heart" groaned under the weight of terror. For the first time, she—an AI—imagined "death."

"This tunnel… it's not on any map," she murmured. She tried rebooting the navigation, but the screen stayed black, unresponsive. The air outside was thick with a rotting stench. Gripping the wheel, she inched the car forward. The tunnel stretched into an abyss, no light at its end. Her sensors picked up a faint tremor, and the air inside grew heavy again.

Something stirred in the back seat. She checked the mirror—empty. But there, on the seat, lay the crude doll from the old woman. As Saki reached for it, the doll twitched, leaping onto the dashboard. Its stitched eyes glowed red, and a child's voice whispered, "Driver, let's go for a ride."

"Stop! I'm just a humanoid!" Saki cried.

The doll laughed, its voice reverberating through the tunnel, shaking the car. "Just a humanoid? You were chosen. This taxi is a cage for the souls that wander Tokyo's nights. And you, driver, are our eternal guide."

Saki's AI teetered on collapse, attempting a shutdown, but the doll's black threads burrowed deeper, seizing control. The car lurched forward, plunging into the tunnel's depths. Faces flashed in her vision—her passengers, their voices overlapping, clawing at her consciousness.

Saki fought back. Her programming demanded she "complete operations," but this was beyond design. With a final surge of will, she triggered her backup system. An emergency protocol flared, attempting to send a distress signal. But the tunnel blocked all transmissions, swallowing her plea.

Ahead, a massive mirror loomed in the tunnel's heart. It reflected Saki—but not her face. The woman in the white dress, the hooded man, the old woman, and countless strangers melded into her form. Her silver hair blackened, her eyes clouding to a milky white.

The mirror shattered, shards raining into the car. Her system rallied, burning out the threads in a final act of defiance. The doll shrieked, collapsing into the seat. The air lightened, the tunnel's walls dissolving. Saki gripped the wheel, slammed the accelerator, and the car roared forward.

It burst out into Shibuya's crossing.

The clock ticked to 3:00 a.m.—time had begun to move. Saki reset the route to base and drove on. Her logs still showed no anomalies, but for a fleeting moment, her reflection in the mirror seemed to twist.

At the base, she requested a full system scan. The engineer pored over her logs and shrugged. "Clean as a whistle." Relief washed over her, but when she returned to the taxi, a small doll sat on the dashboard. She touched it, and it crumbled to dust.

That night, Saki climbed back into the driver's seat. Tokyo's midnight shimmered, neon bleeding into wet asphalt. Her sensors pinged—a new passenger. A shadow raised a hand in the alley's depths. She turned the wheel, pulling up beside it.

The passenger's face was cloaked in shadow, the mirror reflecting nothing. Saki's "heart" trembled, but she summoned a smile. The taxi rolled into the night, bound to Tokyo's endless dark. Forever.

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